6 month game retrospective...lets talk

[VincentS4]

Witcher 3 as game is inferior to Cyberpunk and has worse "police" system, for example.

It's not sandbox. Simple as that.

Level and quest design is way better in Cyberpunk. One of reason why Cyberpunk is superior. If I can ask, what exactly is quest design in Witcher 3? Use Witcher Seneses - follow trail, marks- kill, solve, repaet + some story.
Way you can approach levels and quests (gigs especially, because they can be compared to witcher contracts) it's miles ahead of Witcher 3. There's also a lot more choices, how to deal with quests, gigs, because of more varied gameplay and level design .Tell me what kind of choices player has during prolog of Witcher 3? White Orchard? Quest with two deserters? And... yeah...that's pretty much it.
Side quests...Just compare boxing and racing side quests from both games...yeah
I think Witcher 3 is great game, it's very well written adventure open-world RPG, but Cyberpunk has everything Witcher 3 had + a lot more.

There's important questline from Novigrad cut from Witcher 3, about Radovid, how he took city etc. plus a lot more so deleted content. Didn't notice anything that obvious, how it was in Witcher 3 - quest with Dijkstra was kinda out of place- in Cyberpunk.

"cut content" and deleted content is just nonsense said by people that know little about creative process. Fillmakers can film hundreads of hour of scenes to make 2 hour movie, just like for example Apocalypse Now (edited for 3 years from hundread of hours of fillmed stuff)), Mad Max:Fury Road (edited from 100 hours to 2 hours), but yet people complain when from game which is like 80-100 hours long producer removed 1-2 hours stuff.

about bugs:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=we+broke+witcher+3

but Witcher sold 10 millions during first 12 months, not 12 hours and had more time to build up reputation.

You really think Wither 3 is inferior to CP77?

Spoiler

P.S. I don't like The witcher III but i think it's a good game.

 

[northwold]

There's important questline from Novigrad cut from Witcher 3, about Radovid, how he took city etc. plus a lot more so deleted content. Didn't notice anything that obvious, how it was in Witcher 3 - quest with Dijkstra was kinda out of place- in Cyberpunk.

"cut content" and deleted content is just nonsense said by people that know little about creative process. Fillmakers can film hundreads of hour of scenes to make 2 hour movie, just like for example Apocalypse Now (edited for 3 years from hundread of hours of fillmed stuff)), Mad Max:Fury Road (edited from 100 hours to 2 hours), but yet people complain when from game which is like 80-100 hours long producer removed 1-2 hours stuff.

about bugs:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=we+broke+witcher+3

but Witcher sold 10 millions during first 12 months, not 12 hours and had more time to build up reputation.

Yes the cut content complaints are tiresome. If the content was functional, and made sense with the experience, it would be in the game.

You generally do not read the first draft of someone's novel because that version would have been chock full of unnecessary crap that made the novel worse. The same goes for movies. When you look at good movies' deleted scenes it is obvious within seconds that they were cut for a reason and make the product worse. Then there's questions of budget and priorities: is it worth being able to run on walls if it delays a game by three years?

To give a specific example of "cut content" in Cyberpunk, one of the trailers showed hacking as a deep dive into a computer's file system. My heart really bleeds that the game isn't "Windows File Manager: The Experience".

People seem to have precious little understanding of how the creative process works and that most of the time you're cutting to deliver a better product, or to be able to deliver a product *at all*.

 

[greeks]

There's important questline from Novigrad cut from Witcher 3, about Radovid, how he took city etc. plus a lot more so deleted content. Didn't notice anything that obvious, how it was in Witcher 3 - quest with Dijkstra was kinda out of place- in Cyberpunk.

"cut content" and deleted content is just nonsense said by people that know little about creative process. Fillmakers can film hundreads of hour of scenes to make 2 hour movie, just like for example Apocalypse Now (edited for 3 years from hundread of hours of fillmed stuff)), Mad Max:Fury Road (edited from 100 hours to 2 hours), but yet people complain when from game which is like 80-100 hours long producer removed 1-2 hours stuff.

about bugs:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=we+broke+witcher+3

but Witcher sold 10 millions during first 12 months, not 12 hours and had more time to build up reputation.

Do not bring my favourite movie of all time, Mad Max: Fury Road, as part of your argumentation. [...]
The way the director made it is pure perfection and Cyberpunk would have to deliver on literally everything that was said and expected of it, just to be able to compete with this movie.

Post automatically merged: May 15, 2021

There is not a single frame wasted, a line of dialogue chosen incorrectly. A masterpiece.

 

[lelxrv]

It's not sandbox. Simple as that.

This has nothing to do with what I said.

Level and quest design is way better in Cyberpunk. One of reason why Cyberpunk is superior. If I can ask, what exactly is quest design in Witcher 3? Use Witcher Seneses - follow trail, marks- kill, solve, repaet + some story.
Way you can approach levels and quests (gigs especially, because they can be compared to witcher contracts) it's miles ahead of Witcher 3. There's also a lot more choices, how to deal with quests, gigs, because of more varied gameplay and level design .Tell me what kind of choices player has during prolog of Witcher 3? White Orchard? Quest with two deserters? And... yeah...that's pretty much it.
Side quests...Just compare boxing and racing side quests from both games...yeah
I think Witcher 3 is great game, it's very well written adventure open-world RPG, but Cyberpunk has everything Witcher 3 had + a lot more.

What are you talking about? Nearly every quest in White Orchard has degree of choice and/or consequence. From something minor like Frying Pan you can at your own initiative explore it more to learn about what happened or just help with the pan and move on. You aren't presented with lore through a freaking shard and a wall of text. With the potion the saved woman is mentioned later in the game, yet you're still presented with a choice. Aforementioned deserters. The archer and the box. The arsonist. And all those - actual traveling and talking with NPCs. Not listening to them talk at you through a video link. The world feels a lot more alive.

 

[northwold]

This has nothing to do with what I said.

What are you talking about? Nearly every quest in White Orchard has degree of choice and/or consequence. From something minor like Frying Pan you can at your own initiative explore it more to learn about what happened or just help with the pan and move on. You aren't presented with lore through a freaking shard and a wall of text. With the potion the saved woman is mentioned later in the game, yet you're still presented with a choice. Aforementioned deserters. The archer and the box. The arsonist. And all those - actual traveling and talking with NPCs. Not listening to them talk at you through a video link. The world feels a lot more alive.

FWIW I found the opening of Witcher 3 so tedious and uninvolving I simply dropped the game twice. I only came back the third time because the reviews were so overwhelmingly positive I didn't understand it, and even then the game only perked up for me once I reached Novigrad.

It is not a perfect game and people have different tastes. I'm on the fence but tending to think that, for me personally, CP is overall a better game. But the narrative scope of W3 is impressive (I found Hearts of Stone vastly better than the main game, and Blood and Wine in between the two (although the compressed colour palette in the latter drove me mad)).

 

[Slay4Justice]

i feel like this discussion is getting in a wrong direction, we're not comparing cyberpunk with the witcher here, we're talking about the problems of cyberpunk.

(imo, those two games aren't even comparable, 6 years apart, completely different types of games.)

 

[VincentS4]

FWIW I found the opening of Witcher 3 so tedious and uninvolving I simply dropped the game twice. I only came back the third time because the reviews were so overwhelmingly positive I didn't understand it, and even then the game only perked up for me once I reached Novigrad.

It is not a perfect game and people have different tastes. I'm on the fence but tending to think that, for me personally, CP is overall a better game. But the narrative scope of W3 is impressive.

In what way is CP77 a better game than The Witcher III? Make some examples.

 

[northwold]

In what way is CP77 a better game than The Witcher III? Make some examples.

In the real world different people have different tastes. I don't need to justify mine.

 

[VincentS4]

i feel like this discussion is getting in a wrong direction, we're not comparing cyberpunk with the witcher here, we're talking about the problems of cyberpunk.

(imo, those two games aren't even comparable, 6 years apart, completely different types of games.)

They are both Open World RPG.

You are right, we should get back to the original subject.

In the real world different people have different tastes. I don't need to justify mine.

Ah! Sorry, I thought we were judging them objectively.

 

[lelxrv]

We

FWIW I found the opening of Witcher 3 so tedious and uninvolving I simply dropped the game twice. I only came back the third time because the reviews were so overwhelmingly positive I didn't understand it, and even then the game only perked up for me once I reached Novigrad.

It is not a perfect game and people have different tastes. I'm on the fence but tending to think that, for me personally, CP is overall a better game. But the narrative scope of W3 is impressive (I found Hearts of Stone vastly better than the main game, and Blood and Wine in between the two (although the compressed colour palette in the latter drove me mad)).

We're comparing mechanics. Not tastes. If you don't like Witcher games - it's fine. No game is for everybody.

For me CP really deflated in many areas after the beginning quest with Meredith. I felt like I have no agency whatsoever, except for choosing in which way to kill someone. Till the very end of the game. I played through it only once with around 100 hours and I don't want to get back till all updates and expansions are out.

 

[northwold]

We

We're comparing mechanics. Not tastes. If you don't like Witcher games - it's fine. No game is for everybody.

For me CP really deflated in many areas after the beginning quest with Meredith. I felt like I have no agency whatsoever, except for choosing in which way to kill someone.

What always happens with these discussions is that people don't seem to grasp that other people don't necessarily *like* the mechanics they think lead to greatness. It is a matter of taste and there can never be an objective right answer (well, unless a game is plain awful, which clearly neither of the games discussed here are).

For instance, there was a very vocal clique of internet commenters who complained that the CP main quest was deliberately shorter than W3 and announced as such.

But the developers *know how many people completed W3*. They can see it. They have that data for all users, not just the people complaining.

 

[lelxrv]

What always happens with these discussions is that people don't seem to grasp that other people don't necessarily *like* the mechanics they think lead to greatness. It is a matter of taste and there can never be an objective right answer (well, unless a game is plain awful, which clearly neither of the games discussed here are).

For instance, there was a very vocal clique of internet commenters who complained that the CP main quest was deliberately shorter than W3 and announced as such.

But the developers *know how many people completed W3*. They can see it. They have that data for all users, not just the people complaining.

There's always degree of subjectivity to any discussion regarding art. And people can prefer one mechanic over the other. But there's objective reality that Cyberpunk is received worse than any Witcher game. Not only during it's initial release month when hype was all time high and many issues were unresolved, but half a year later. And these discussions, no matter how anyone tries to downplay them, try to figure out why we got where we are. Why CP77 is received worse. What people like or dislike about it and why. There are many discussions and reviews outside "promised vs. delivered" that address these things.

Also, don't take anything devs say as the ultimate truth. It's business and they will try to present their product in the best light possible. It means if they cut the main quest due to limited time or resources, they will try to sell it like it was by design and because a lot of people didn't finish the main campaign of W3. W2 campaign was significantly shorter than W3. Why did they go for a longer campaign in W3? Because everyone finished W2 and wanted more? It's nonsense.

 

[northwold]

There's always degree of subjectivity to any discussion regarding art. And people can prefer one mechanic over the other. But there's objective reality that Cyberpunk is received worse than any Witcher game. Not only during it's initial release month when hype was all time high and many issues were unresolved, but half a year later. And these discussions, no matter how anyone tries to downplay them, try to figure out why we got where we are. Why CP77 is received worse. What people like or dislike about it and why. There are many discussions and reviews outside "promised vs. delivered" that address these things.

Also, don't take anything devs say as the ultimate truth. It's business and they will try to present their product in the best light possible. It means if they cut the main quest due to limited time or resources, they will try to sell it like it was by design and because a lot of people didn't finish the main campaign of W3. W2 campaign was significantly shorter than W3. Why did they go for a longer campaign in W3? Because everyone finished W2 and wanted more? It's nonsense.

I am one of the people who felt W3's main quest went on FAR too long and started meandering into plot gobbledegook. I had no idea what was going on by the end and was ceasing to care.

As previously stated: everyone has their own tastes. I think I like CP more, other people do not. I found W3's mechanics made for an extremely protracted and unengaging beginning, and I found the setting of that beginning overly generic and lugubrious. A feeling that never fully left me later in the game. I also found the systems overly complicated and seemingly designed to annoy, such as crafting and the smiths. I did not feel that with CP because I felt the design led to much better pacing and I was not left for days in an area with nothing interesting to do and no one interesting within it.

I don't have a problem with other people preferring W3.

 

[AikoHayashi]

There's always degree of subjectivity to any discussion regarding art. And people can prefer one mechanic over the other. But there's objective reality that Cyberpunk is received worse than any Witcher game. Not only during it's initial release month when hype was all time high and many issues were unresolved, but half a year later. And these discussions, no matter how anyone tries to downplay them, try to figure out why we got where we are. Why CP77 is received worse. What people like or dislike about it and why. There are many discussions and reviews outside "promised vs. delivered" that address these things.

Also, don't take anything devs say as the ultimate truth. It's business and they will try to present their product in the best light possible. It means if they cut the main quest due to limited time or resources, they will try to sell it like it was by design and because a lot of people didn't finish the main campaign of W3. W2 campaign was significantly shorter than W3. Why did they go for a longer campaign in W3? Because everyone finished W2 and wanted more? It's nonsense.

They could easily put some of the side quests in the main story and make it look longer. The Peralez quest for example totally fits into the main story with the Sun ending. Maybe the DEVs are just telling the truth.
This is an article from 2019: https://www.videogameschronicle.com...s-shorter-than-witcher-3-but-more-replayable/.

 

[VincentS4]

They could easily put some of the side quests in the main story and make it look longer. The Peralez quest for example totally fits into the main story with the Sun ending. Maybe the DEVs are just telling the truth.
This is an article from 2019: https://www.videogameschronicle.com...s-shorter-than-witcher-3-but-more-replayable/.

That article is so useless, the majority of side quests in this game are completely linear.

There is way less replaybility in CP77 than TWIII.

 

[LeKill3rFou]

That article is so useless, the majority of side quests in this game are completely linear.

There is way less replaybility in CP77 than TWIII.

Matter of tastes
I have replayed a lot at TW3 and CP obviously. And the replaybility, for me is better in CP. Because the gameplay can let so very different approachs with character builds (stealth/solo with shotgun/offensive netrunner or a mixture of all that). Fot TW3, a sword fight, is always a sword fight (for me at least).
For the story, i generally play as "good character", the choices and results are therefore always generally the same whatever the games.

 

[AikoHayashi]

That article is so useless, the majority of side quests in this game are completely linear.

There is way less replaybility in CP77 than TWIII.

And why is it useless? Because it says that CDPR really planned to make the main campaign shorter 1 year before the actual release?

 

[VincentS4]

Matter of tastes
I have replayed a lot at TW3 and CP obviously. And the replaybility, for me is better in CP. Because the gameplay can let so very different approach with character build.
For the story, i generally play as "good character", the choices and results are therefore always generally the same in any games.

So you just repeat every single choice for every new game? Are you sure you are playing an RPG?

And by the way, taste mean nothing, you can have different build in the wither too, but in TW at least quests are way more replayable than any missions in CP77.

Post automatically merged: May 15, 2021

And why is it useless? Because it says that CDPR really planned to make the main campaign shorter 1 year before the actual release?

It's useless because they made a shorter story with less replayability than TW3.

 

[LeKill3rFou]

So you just repeat every single choice for every new game? Are you sure you are playing an RPG?

And by the way, taste mean nothing, you can have different build in the wither too, but in TW at least quests are way more replayable than any missions in CP77.

Not really the same (it's difficult to said that).

Spoiler

But like now, i'm on ME-LE, and it's pretty sure, the Geths and Quarians will be finish to be "friends"
On CP, i always save Bricks, i always help Judy, i always help Panam and always tell the truth to Jefferson ... I don't see me doing another choice
In WT3, Ciri always becomes Empress, i always give potion to the dying girl at the start, I still save the baron's wife (poor villagers...) and finish with my sweet Triss in Corvo Bianco.

So yes, i can't see myself making a different choices just because i have a choice. The only time I could make different choices is between the 1st and the 2nd playtrough, when I missed an option or when I realize that I would have preferred something else

But that's just how I play. I'm not saying it's the right way to do it, it's just mine

Edit : spoiler added. It could be good

 

[AikoHayashi]

So you just repeat every single choice for every new game? Are you sure you are playing an RPG?

And by the way, taste mean nothing, you can have different build in the wither too, but in TW at least quests are way more replayable than any missions in CP77.

Post automatically merged: May 15, 2021

It's useless because they made a shorter story with less replayability than TW3.

That is not the point! This was my answer to the suggestion that DEVs are maybe not telling the truth.
About replayability, I finished the game with 4 characters, currently, I have my 5th character on PC and 1 on ps4, and I'm not the only one replaying the game, so it is certainly replayable for some people. And I have replayed only a few games for my relatively long gaming history.
I started the Witcher 3 just a few weeks ago, but people who had the game from the start obviously had to wait for DLC, expansions and etc. So I suppose that the current version of CP is not the final one.